Fall in "my home among the hills"

Well Folks, We are still here!

Just wanted to update everyone on recent happenings, and as always, share some pictures of fun things going on.

Earlier this month (Oct. 4th to be exact), Zach and I celebrated our one year anniversary. It has gone by so fast! We had a weekend getaway (thanks for sitting mom and dad!) to Brazenhead Inn in Mingo, WV. Here is a picture of the inn.

It was such a neat place. It is an irish inspired inn, with really neat and musically gifted owners, Will and Jill Fanning. They made us feel so at home. We will definately go back again. Here we are after a rousing game of scrabble=). Zach won.

I took this picture because Will's work was so cool. He carved bears out of huge tree stumps, with a chain saw!!!! Zach thinks he should try this.........I'm not so sure.......

Switching gears: Koley is doing pretty good this week at school. We have our good days and our bad days, but we are trying really hard to make them all GREAT days as kole would say. When he has a great day, he gets to play with his friend JT after school either at our house or his (he lived three houses down). Here is a picture of a great day afternoon!

We have also been carving pumpkins! I, of course, made roasted pumpkin seeds....yum.

We love the guts!!!

Kole got the camera for a while.

He actually pulled some guts out!!! I was impressed with my texture phobic little man!

Giving proper instruction on how to clean out a pumpkin....lol

Ghostly faces by the lighted pumpkins.....Koles was a spider.

Both of the pumpkins.

Mine pumpkin was super ambitious, but I did it! I even used a drill bit for pretty holes on the sides.

I just took this unfinished, because who knows when Zach will get to it=). Its Yoda.

Time to put up the hammock! Fall is my favorite time. I love the colors, the smells, the cooler air........

Do you see my little friend in this picture?

Look closer in this one....in the middle.

Yes, Deer. We have lots of them. There is a little family that is always puttering around.

Recently, Kole decided that he wanted to be a super hero. We had this kit and it came with all the things needed and complete instructions for being a super hero. He decided his name was "The flying grant writer"!!!

He was even able to control the power of flight!

the kit came complete with a business card....

And enabled him to be a super stealth.

So there you go. After all that, I need a break=)!

Sesame Street Alphabet Song

I am using this clip for my 1st graders tomorrow, or tuesday...and we are blocked from youtube at school so I had to put it on here so I could show it=)~!!

pray that it works when I need it...haha that would be my luck!

Enjoy! Brought back memories for me.......

it has begun.......

School is in! And I am tired! Haha, seriously though, I know this is going to be a great year. My kids are awesome, I have a pretty good schedule, and who wouldn't want to work for their dad (especially when he is as cool as mine=).

I have some pictures to post........We went on vacation, the garden is crazy, and Kole started school. Get ready.....cuz here they come.....

Here are the boys, planning out the route to the beach.....OCracoke Island, Outerbanks, NC

WERE THERE!!!! They were running from the waves. Needless to say, we got very wet.

We got a kite to fly too.....it was fun.

This one is definately getting framed.

Seagulls on the ferry boat. We drove our car onto to boat to get to the island. I thought this scene was to perfect not to snap a photo.....

Another cool shot from the dock.

Family photo.....

Blackbeards museum......ARG!!

We found so many shells!

ARG AGAIN!!!!

Kole and I went crabbing! It was so fun!!!!! We caught 2 big ones and lots of little ones. The male blue crab is in this shot!

Family photo on the ferry.

It rained a couple days so we played some card games...it was fun too!

Kole learned to do a back flip and a front flip in our villas pool.

Ocracoke Lighthouse......

We loved the beach!

Now on to my garden.....It exploded while we were on vacation! It is a jungle, in both good and bad ways. Weeds are awful.......but everything is producing so well.

These are watermelon and are now bigger than my head.....if you can imagine...haha. We have 6 of them growing well.

Our HUGE sunflowers.......

I actually just picked all this today. I have gotten baskets and baskets full of produce. We have green beans, gourds, corn, sunflowers, watermelons, pumpkins, tomatoes, potatoes, banana peppers, jalepeno peppers, green bell peppers, carrots, squash, eggplant, onions, and cucumbers. I think thats it....

Zach was in awe......My tomatoes are just going crazy!

I took a canning class this summer as well.....Here are some green beans.

And hot pepper mix.......

Ok Now what you all been waiting for......First day of school for Kole!!! He loved his first day. He says the bus ride is a little boring, but woke up this morning (saturday) and begged to go to kindergarten.......not on a weekend my dear!!!!!

Zach was fixin Koles hair here......

Ready to go! He was up at 6:30 jumping on our bed saying, we are going to miss the bus!!....Get up!!! His bus doesnt come until 7:55.............

There he goes.....I was crying behind the camera! It is hard to let them go......

This is getting back off the bus....

Here he is running towards me yelling, "IT WAS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!"

So anyways, things are good with us. Still recovering from a long, emotional first week of school. I think I am going to go nap now.........

email....

For those who need to add my email address.....

I still have pickle1483@aol.com as my primary address....

But with this site, they made me create a gmail account....

So this site knows me as pickle1483@gmail.com......

So I am assuming, when adding my email so that I can view your blogs, you should use the gmail account, although i never check that account for email, just use it to be on this blog site.

Make sense? Kinda? It confuses me as well=)

Summa time....and the livin' is easy.......

It has been a while. Sorry.

We just got back from Lost River! It was so nice to just chill in the woods, have a fire everynight (sometimes during the day too!), and hike some trails. We rented a little cabin for 3 nights during the 4th weekend. We played I only got 2 pictures of the whole time! It was alot of fun. Kole really enjoyed softball, misty valley (ice cream every night), loblolly trail, and the fire works.
I really missed that place!

This is what most mornings, evenings, and rainy afternoons looked like!

Kole was yelling "I always have to swim alone!" in a sing songy way over and over again when i took this picture. He needs a sibling.

So before lost river, we went to the lake house for the last time=(. It is definately bittersweet for all of us. We have made good memories there.

Kole is becoming an expert boat driver.

We went to swallow falls on this trip as well. Here are a few shots from that.

He was trying to catch the run off from the cliff behind him!

Summer so far has been awesome. I think we might do another vacation, but a week long this time. Just not sure when or where yet. All else is good with our little family. We are definately blessed!